Yesterday, Acting U.S. Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank
traveled to Virginia Beach, Va., where she toured
the STIHL manufacturing plant and announced a new initiative to strengthen the
economy by supporting American businesses as they make things here in America
and create jobs. The Make
it in America Challenge is designed to accelerate the trend of insourcing,
where companies are bringing jobs back and making additional investments in
America. The competition, which is being funded by the Department of
Commerce’s Economic Development Administration and National Institute of
Standards and Technology Manufacturing Extension Partnership and the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration, will build upon
the administration’s bottom-up approach to strengthening the economy and
creating jobs by partnering with state, regional and local economies.

The national competition will help provide the critical
infrastructure, strategic planning, capacity building, technical assistance,
and workforce skills training necessary for American communities to be the
desired home for more businesses. The Make it in America Challenge builds on
the administration’s efforts to encourage companies—large and small, foreign
and domestic, manufacturers and services firms—to increase investment in the
United States.

Acting Secretary Blank also highlighted two ongoing
efforts by the Department of Commerce to attract foreign direct investment. SelectUSA, a program the president
launched last year, continues to showcase the United States as the world’s
premier business location and to provide easy access to federal-level programs
and services related to business investment. Also, Commerce’s Commercial Services officers have been trained
to help foreign investors who want information about how to invest in the U.S
and who want to link up with local and state economic development leaders to
create jobs in America.

On Thursday evening, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) physicist Jacob Taylor received a Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal (Sammies) for his advanced scientific research, which has potential for advances in health care, communications, computing, and technology. Presented the award by Acting Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank, Taylor was one of just nine winners chosen from nearly 400 nominees for awards honoring excellence in public service.

A fellow at the Joint Quantum Institute, Taylor has already developed a number of original theories on the cutting-edge of theoretical physics. One such idea is a way to allow magnetic resonance imaging to more effectively be utilized on the molecular level. This holds the promise of providing more detailed health information, better diagnoses, more targeted medical treatments, and more rapid discoveries of new drugs.

Taylor also has a pending patent on a process that would increase the quantity of data that could be sent through the Internet while using less energy, and his theory on computing has the potential to advance scientists much closer to the goal of achieving quantum computing—an extraordinary development in the field of physics that would allow for unprecedented increases to calculation speed.

In a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday, the
Commerce Department’s National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) unveiled a new laboratory
designed to demonstrate that a typical-looking suburban home for a family of
four can generate as much energy as it uses in a year. Following an initial
year-long experiment, the facility will be used to improve test methods for
energy-efficient technologies and develop cost-effective design standards for
energy-efficient homes that could reduce overall energy consumption and harmful
pollution, and save families money on their monthly utility bills.

The unique facility looks and behaves like an
actual house, and has been built to U.S. Green Building Council LEED Platinum
standards—the highest standard for sustainable structures. The two-story,
four-bedroom, three-bath Net-Zero
Energy Residential Test Facility incorporates energy-efficient construction
and appliances, as well as energy-generating technologies such as solar water
heating and solar photovoltaic systems. Full release
| Video

New car sales are beating expectations, having just seen the best August sales since 2009—nearly 1.3 million cars and trucks were sold last month. So far this year, sales for new cars are up 20 percent and sales for light-duty trucks are up more than 10 percent. Blank noted that, compared to the lowest point in 2009, the number of people employed in auto dealerships has risen by more than 85,000.

She also highlighted Cash for Clunkers, a $3 billion investment that stimulated our economy at a critical time when we needed consumers to go ahead and buy new cars, instead of holding back. Not only did Cash for Clunkers help auto dealers get through a tough patch, but it also helped auto manufacturers and suppliers who were struggling to keep their workers employed and put safer, cleaner cars on the road.

The Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has awarded nearly $2 million in Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards to 12 U.S. businesses. These awards provide funding to help companies develop technologies that could lead to commercial and public benefit.

"We are delighted by the high quality of SBIR proposals we received, and congratulate all the awardees," said Phillip Singerman, associate director for innovation and industry services at NIST. "Over the past year, NIST updated the solicitation process to focus on critical national priorities and provide maximum opportunities for businesses that are just starting out. With three-fourths of the Phase I recipients in business fewer than 10 years and two-thirds of them with 12 employees or fewer, the results of the solicitation demonstrate the success of that process."

NIST's SBIR program is a competitive funding opportunity that provides contracts to small businesses for federal research and development. In Phase I, small businesses can receive up to $90,000 to establish the scientific or technical merit or feasibility of ideas that support the commercial potential of their research. If after six months the Phase I awardees have accomplished their goals, they can compete for Phase II funding of up to $300,000 to continue their research and development efforts for up to two years.

Not many 25-year-olds can boast that in their short lifetime they have helped thousands of organizations develop and maintain world-class operations, innovative management, efficient procedures, involved workforces and highly satisfied customers. But one certainly can: the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, the nation's premier means for organizations of all types to seek, achieve and maintain performance excellence.

On August 20, 1987, President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Improvement Act, establishing the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and its supporting program "to spark U.S. competitiveness and create a sustainable economy." Named after Malcolm Baldrige, the 26th Secretary of Commerce, the Baldrige Award and the Baldrige Program have guided organizations worldwide on their journeys toward continuous improvement and enhanced performance through the seven Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence—leadership; strategic planning; customer focus; measurement, analysis and knowledge management; workforce focus; operations focus; and results.

Thanks to a new reference standard developed by Commerce's National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), law enforcement agencies
will have an easier time linking the nearly 200,000 cartridge cases
recovered annually at U.S. crime scenes to specific firearms.

Cartridge cases—the empty shells left behind after a gun is fired—are
routinely sent to forensic laboratories for analysis when they're found
at a shooting scene. Using a specialized microscope called an
Integrated Ballistic Identification System (IBIS), lab technicians
acquire digital images of three markings, or "signatures," impressed on
the cartridge case by the gun that fired it. These signatures—the firing
pin impression, the breech face impression and the ejector mark—are
unique when fired from a specific firearm and can serve as
"fingerprints" for that gun once the digital images are entered into a
national database known as the National Integrated Ballistic Information
Network (NIBIN).

For forensic examiners to reliably match recovered cartridge cases
with ones whose signatures have been recorded in the NIBIN, they need to
have confidence in the accuracy of the equipment and procedures used to
make the link. That's where NIST's new "standard casing" comes in. The
standard contains two items: an exact replica of a master cartridge case
with distinct signature marks (obtained from the Department of
Justice's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF),
and a "golden" digital image of those same signatures that reside on the
NIBIN. Full Tech Beat story

The awards, established by President Clinton in 1996, are coordinated by the Office of Science and Technology Policy within the Executive Office of the President. Awardees are selected for their pursuit of innovative research at the frontiers of science and technology and their commitment to community service as demonstrated through scientific leadership, public education, or community outreach.

The scientists are recognized not only for their innovative research, but also their demonstrated commitment to community service.

“Having the opportunity to hear directly from
manufacturers and see their operations firsthand is invaluable to those of us
working to support and increase the competitiveness of American manufacturing,”
said Gallagher.

The trip was coordinated by the Illinois Manufacturing
Extension Center (IMEC), the Illinois center for the NIST Manufacturing
Extension Partnership (MEP) program. “NIST is a critical resource for advanced
manufacturing competitiveness,” said David Boulay, president of IMEC. “We were
pleased to show the director the great prospects for American manufacturing
success.”

Gallagher, along with representatives from the City of
Chicago including Housing and Economic Development Commissioner Andrew Mooney,
toured PortionPac Corporation. The company is a sustainability-focused
manufacturer of highly concentrated, pre-measured cleaning products. President
Burt Klein and other company leaders got the chance to showcase their
manufacturing processes. With its commitment to workforce excellence,
recognized by INC. magazine’s 2010 Winning Workplace, and its values of
innovation, environmental leadership and social responsibility, the company
highlights the keys to success for the next generation
manufacturer.

A new report by a national committee of U.S. industry and university leaders details 16 recommendations "aimed at reinventing manufacturing in a way that ensures U.S. competitiveness, feeds into the nation's innovation economy, and invigorates the domestic manufacturing base."

The report was prepared by the 18-member steering committee of the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) that was launched by President Obama in June 2011 and co-chaired by Susan Hockfield, now president emerita of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Andrew Liveris, president, chairman and chief executive officer of The Dow Chemical Company.

The recommendations include a call to establish a national network of manufacturing innovation institutes; an emphasis on investment in community college training of the advanced manufacturing workforce; an approach to evaluate platform manufacturing technologies for collaborative investment; a plan to reinvigorate the image of manufacturing in America; and proposals for trade, tax, regulatory, and energy policies that would level the global playing field for domestic manufacturers. Full NIST release